The Secret to a Popular Girl
Group
In the Western music industry (US, UK) girl groups
are not as much of a phenomenon as in the Asian music industry (K-pop,
J-pop). Nonetheless, the most popular girl groups can be found all over
the world.
Based on the number of claimed total records, four of
the most popular girl groups around the world have been studied. These
groups are the ‘Spice Girls’ (UK), ‘The Supremes’ (US), ‘2NE1’ (KR) and
‘AKB48’ (JP). The greatest hits, according to Spotify, of each group are
used to gain a better insight into the following questions: What do
popular girl groups have in common? What makes a group stand out? What
is the secret of a popular girl group?
The “This is ‘group name’ “ playlists, created by Spotify, have been used for all groups. A total of 178 songs have been studied: 42 songs of ‘Spice Girls’, 50 songs of ‘The Supremes’, 36 songs of ‘2NE1’ and 50 songs of ‘AKB48’. These playlists may also include solo song of some members.
Let’s meet the groups
Now it is time to listen to the most popular song (most listened to on Spotify) of each group!
The different moods of the songs
Do you ever get very excited or feel a boost of energy when you listen to the Spice Girls? This is due to the valence and energy of the song, which together give off a certain mood, in this case happiness!
In general, most of the songs from the four girl groups have a high valence and energy (> 0.5), making them happy. For AKB48, almost all songs have a really high energy (> 0.85), whereas the valence differs from anywhere between 0.07 and 0.85. Thus, this group has the perfect songs to give you some energy, although one part of the spectrum consists of negative energy, the song gives off an angry/afraid/distressed mood, and the other part of positive energy, the song gives off a happy/excited mood. Nonetheless, it is important to notice that the high energy levels could have less to do with the mood and be a result of the fact that J-pop often comes hand-in-hand with an amazing choreography instead, and thus a high danceability. We will explore the danceability of the songs in the next graph. Furthermore, the same moods also hold to a lesser extent for the songs of 2NE1. Although there are no extreme outliers, there is one angry/annoyed song (low valence, high energy) and one very excited song (high valence, high energy). These are “liwake Maybe” by AKB48 (top left) and “LIKE A VIRGIN” by 2NE1 (top right), respectively. All in all, most songs are perfect to cheer you up, where the Asian songs give a boost of energy on top of that.
hoi
hoi again